Utah Monitors Disappearing Water Across State [Video]

Utah is taking significant strides to understand and manage one of its most elusive water problems: evapotranspiration.

The Utah Geological Survey (UGS), in collaboration with the Utah Division of Water Rights, is developing a statewide network of advanced weather stations under the banner of the Utah Flux Network. These stations are designed to measure evapotranspiration, which accounts for the water evaporated from soil and water bodies and the water transpired by plants.

The initiative is critical because much of Utah’s water doesn’t flow out of the state via rivers, but instead dissipates into the air. For decades, evapotranspiration has been poorly understood, hampering efforts to conserve and manage water resources effectively in the increasingly dry region.

“Evapotranspiration is a major part of the water cycle, and it’s often the one that’s hardest to constrain,” Paul Inkenbrandt, a senior geologist and hydrogeologist with the UGS, told Newsweek.